109. All Torque Day

Today was a special day, not just as this would be the first time we had run the car for nearly 10 months but it was also my 60th birthday which didn't go unnoticed thanks to the crew and my wife.

We go to the track nice and early did a quick bit of fettling and warmed the car up everything seemed ok, we waited for some cars to get  up the track then we towed down for our first go at the new concrete track.

First thing I noticed was I couldn't get the tyres to spin up properly the car nearly died when I shifted into second but I had a go at the track anyway but she bogged off the line and when she did pick up she slid I did this a couple of times then just let her idle through. back in the pits Steve thought she was over fuelling so changed the pill size we armed her up and tried again.

Fired her up and made my way to the start went for the burn out but again it wasn't quite right I then couldn't get reverse I tried a couple of times then noticed and smelt smoke coming up from the cockpit so I shut her down and got pushed back behind the start line where we found one of the trans-brake wires had shorted out, we fixed this in place and Steve also took a smidge of timing out this however gave me another problem after the next burnout the revs shot up on tick-over to nearly 3000 rpm I could hardly hold her on the brake I took the lights and she nosed over stuttered and again I just let her idle through the top end. Back in the pits we realised we had gone the wrong with the pill sizes and had in fact put more fuel in instead of taking it out so a quick re-calculation another warm up and we were ready for another run this time we ran side by side with the Brown boys slingshot, the car sounded a lot better even managed to get some smoke form the burn out...

Still not right but a lot better, so back in the pits a quick turn round then we went for another warm up we were going to try and get another run in before the rain hit but we couldn't start the car a quick look around found a terminal had broken on the micro switch that acted as the inhibitor switch for the gear linkage, this was fixed in double quick time thanks to the super crew working flat out and we went down for our last run.

Again not perfect I peddled a couple of times when the crew came to pick me up Steve mentioned that he had not adjust the barrel valve so we can't complain we had got the car down the track four times and we took her  home in one piece. Back in the pits Steve found the fuel we had been using had been contaminated which may have accounted for some of our problems, we had a good day and we all went home happy...now that's a first, next stop the Nostalgia Nationals.

108. A surprising update!

I really didn't expect this, so after the complete and utter disappointment of Easter comes a ray of sunshine. Santa Pod have re-arranged some meetings due tot he ongoing problems caused by the weather which has allowed some of us to run on the 15th April...my birthday, free if we didn't get on the track at Easter.

I had to phone number 1 Son and crew chief first and see if he could clear it with his family, which he could then ring crew member and Brother and then ask my wonderful wife if she fancies coming along, they all say Yes!!!!

There are three things we want to achieve on this "All Torque" day 

1. Get the car down the track nice and easy check everything is working as it should.

2. Perform at least two launches ( full run if possible) one with Trans brake  one with Hand brake launch and see what the difference is?

3. Bring car home in one piece.

If we manage to achieve all three then I will g  home a happy 60 year old (did I just say that out loud?)

I also noticed that on the Santa Pod web site under the photo entry list the photo of my car is amazing, both wheels up, so I tracked down the photographer David Beitler and asked for permission to use them, not only did he agree he mailed me the high res versions, so thank you very much David.

Love the bottom photo I don't have many photo's if any of the car with both wheels up like that and  you can see all the fuel running out underneath out of the breather before we put the catch can on.

Right back on my head for today will update this blog after the weekend in the meantime I will be praying to the weather Gods.....again!!!

107. Festival of Power? should read Festival of Power of Mother Nature!!!

After a very long lay off we were ready to race again, the team had done a huge amount of work on the car and trailer to get everything ready for Easter, bear in mind we did keep an eye on the weather and we knew it wasn't going to be great but we had hoped we could get down the track a couple of times.

So very early Thursday morning I made my way to Bedford to "The Petrol; Station" where Dave and Steve would meet up with me a quick toilet break and cuppa then off we went to collect the trailer, The guys at the park told us they would open up at 7:30 am for us they were true to their word in fact they had the gates open even earlier. We hitched up the trailer and made our way the 7 miles up the road to the "Pod", We collected our tickets from the office and set up camp for the weekend.

I don't think any of us would have expected the weather to be so atrocious for three days, but it was it rained and rained and rained!!!!!

We did however get our car, along with a few others!! up to the scrutineering bay for the compulsory safety checks. Trust me this was the furthest our car went all weekend and probably the fastest too.

The car was scrutinised but they wouldn't give us our ticket till Mark Norton the tech guy stuck the chassis tag he had for our car on one of the chassis bars, for that we had to wait for the next day where mark duly cam down to see us and applied the stickers we had waited for two years to see on our car.

And that's all that happened Friday because of the weather, so we spent most of the day...again sitting in the trailer waiting for God to turn the sprinklers off. Although we do have some home comforts in the trailer.

Saturday night was not only very wet but very very cold as well, Dave and Steve went back to Luton I stayed with the trailer, turned out to be a bad decision, I thought we were going to lose our awning at one point, it was already battered and broken before we put it up, So we used some straps out of the trailer to give it some extra security we even strapped it down to the dragster Chassis.

Sunday dawned and instead of hearing the sweet sounds of birds chirping we got the even better noise from 6am of the  track crew prepping the track. Things were looking up, Racing did commence but we had two accidents during the racing and after the second one the decision was made to not let any cars making any real power on the rack, so that was us done 4 days of sitting around and hoping then...pack it all up.

We did achieve a couple of things we managed to get the chassis tag, we got through scutineering and we ran the motor up a few times which is a dam site more than some teams managed to accomplish over this rain and accident hit weekend, Oh well on to the next one then.

106. Back to work

Here we are in the middle of February and a lot of decisions have been made with regards to my life and where that life will be in the future, this year my wonderful wife Lorni and I will be re-locating to Spain but the race team will continue albeit with a different driver eventually. So how did we leave last year? well it was the worse year yet for the team we just about destroyed the motor on the Friday RWYB at Dragstalgia 2017 It denormalised both Steve and myself to the point where we both thought about giving drag racing altogether. That thought lasted around 20 seconds, we had a plan, in the meantime Dave and I continued to support The Wild Bunch in the only manner left open to us, and that was as spectators not what we wanted but better than nothing, I was really upset that we as a team couldn't race again at Shaky last year as we now know that opportunity is now lost to us.

We got our engine back just after the end of the 2017 season so we decided to just pop it in the trailer and wait for this year. A couple of weeks ago I got hold of Steve and arranged a date to meet up at the trailer with Dave and my other son Phil to get this job done. As this was arranged a while before the event I had at that time no idea what the weather was going to be like which is always a worry when working outside..

So last Sunday the 11th we all met up at the usual place that being the BP garage on the outskirts of Bedford, we then made our way to the trailer, the sun was shining but hell it was cold. We don't have a workshop or garage so everything is carried in the trailer, first job was to empty as much out of it as we could, then pull the trailer onto some flat ground so we could get the dragster out of the trailer along with the engine and engine hoist.

Next job was to get the dragster pushed round out of everyone's way where we could work on it and get the engine back where it belongs.

Then remove all the body panels and get to work, the boys did good and it didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought it would to get the motor back in and connected up, it wasn't long before we were ready to try and fire her up, timing was checked fuel pipes re-connected, battery connected, fuel in the tank and oil in the sump hmm! it was cold and the oil was thick and we couldn't get the oil pressure we needed before we hit the ignition so...  Steve had a bright idea of using the old dizzie shaft as an oil primer...worked a treat we were ready.

First hit of the ignition and we were rewarded by the biggest, loudest back fire I had ever heard I nearly lost my coffee, 180 degrees out.. so fix that check firing order one last times and.....

..she's alive!!!! OK so the timing isn't right yet but she ran for a wee while until the guys noticed a small fuel leak on the pipe that leads from the tank to the pump, so that was fixed and the timing fettled a wee bit time for a second try.

She fired up great but soon petered out, so it would help if the fuel was turned on guys, I shouldn't laugh as that is something I do on a regular basis...so lets try that again shall we...

..right so here's a handy tip for all you budding drag racers out there, even though the car is on stands and is in neutral it doesn't mean it is safe as the wheels will still turn! so don't lean on them while starting the car, secondly don't place the starter battery anywhere near the landing zone it could hurt. One last time then...

..result everything is fine timing is nigh on correct the fuelling isn't that far out if at all and we have amazing oil pressure, time to put it all together and packed away, it didn't take much time to get the body  panels back on and the tools cleared up. We couldn't run her up again as we had already pushed our luck a wee bit, behind the fence that is behind the yellow and red dumpster is a four star hotel so not wanting any uninvited intervention we called it a day.

It was at this point that the bad weather front we had heard of decided to turn up 40 minutes early, it came down quick and hard we had snow sleet and rain right at the point where we had everything out of the trailer and exposed, bloody typical and on top of that I had left the window down on the truck so I had a wet seat, never mind we have a race car again something I was beginning to doubt that would ever happen.

The A team worked hard and quick very proud of them, the engine is probably running properly for the first time since we had it built. We have a couple of small things to sort out, Steve is going to get his mate to make us a new set of header adapters up as there are some stripped threads on the old ones and somewhere in the trailer is the chromed thermostat cover that blanks off the hole on the inlet manifold and I have to sort out the cut wires on the trailer brakes and sort out a few jobs in the trailer but we are ready 2018 season so bring it on....!

105. End of the season and end of an era????

As previous stated we missed most of this season due to breakages,the team decided that it might be a good idea to find someone who knows these engines inside out to have a look at it and see if they can find out what the problems are that keep us from getting through a whole meeting without doing damage. through a  friend of a friend we found our guru Simon who doesn't live too far away from where our car is stored.

The engine was left with him and it wasn't too long when he got back in touch with Steve to give a list of the problems he found. It was a long list!!!! first of all the valves were too big for the valve seats so once the new valves turned up the chambers were opened up and the seats re-cut to suit the valves, we asked him to port the heads properly for us this is when he found the heads were mis-matched, they were the same numbers but there was probably a length of time between them as the internal castings were different, this probably explains the temperature difference between the two, so after a lot of machining we had matching heads again, The main bearings were too wide and had been catching on the crank, there was no end plate and shims or bearing on the end of the cam shaft to stop it "Walking" the timing marks were way out and the top of the bores had been chamfered to aid piston fitting the problem being that this left very little meat for the head gasket to seal on so the block was decked to rid us of the chamfer and a thicker head gasket ordered. We also needed stud girdles on the heads to stop the studs being pulled out under stress...phew! So a lot of parts were needed and a lot of machining to get the engine to a usable state, this is why it has taken so long to get the engine back.

A couple of weeks back we got a message and picture to let us know the work was done, shame it couldn't have been a couple of weeks earlier and we could have run at Shaky one more time before it shuts for good. More on that later.

Simon must have been bored as he also cleaned the motor up and painted it for us. Anyway after a lot of phone calls and txts we managed to arrange to pick the engine up a few days later and it was put away in the trailer to be fitted in the car later..or when the weather gets a little better.

We have our fingers crossed that the car will go a lot better and be one hell of a lot more reliable for the future. The plan for this season was to try and run a 7 second blast and then at the end of the season to let other members of the team have a go in the car to get used to it as next year I will be leaving the Country,As I am no longer the owner of the team just the team Capitan it is my job to get Steven comfortable in the car so he can take over the driving for msa events by the end of next season and maybe Dave for the RWYB type events, we will see.

Having read recently all the info on what is happening at Long Marston Airfield (Shaky) it would appear that the deal is done and racing has finished now it is a great shame in fact it is a tragedy but there is not much anyone can do about it.

Last weekend was the annual Wild Bunch end of season Christmas "Do", which as always was a great event and very well organised I didn't expect to win anything as we hadn't run much but there were other prizes that I thought we might be in with a shout with like the persistence award as we had blown the motor up three times but not given up and rebuilt it every time on top of which we had  also turned up at some events without the car to support the Wild Bunch, and there was the "Big Bang" award and seeing that we had blown our motor up three times I thought we were in with a shout for that as well but sadly no we came away empty handed. But we did have a good time.

So still lots to do for the team, the engine has to go back in ad the car needs to be checked over ready for running on the brand new super smooth and very fast new concrete track at the Pod,

Above photos courtesy of Santa Pod Raceway

Safety gear has to be checked and I think it's about time we got the tag put on our car, so one way or another next season is going to be interesting and exciting...bring it on!!!!!!

104. I suppose we ad best do something about it then....

It's been over a month since Dragstalgia and what with one thing and another,,,,family funeral a wedding crap weather etc, it's been difficult to get the team together to sort out anything but! this past weekend somehow time allowed for Steve, Dave and myself time to get over to the car and start the arduous job of removing the engine. I have already documented on here the problem we had so I wont go over it again but I have got to admit that a month without racing is very boring indeed especially when it seems that some of our Wild Bunch members have taken great strides forward. Anyway first things first even though I am no longer primarily responsible for thee team anyone I am still the driver...till next year and chief towing driver, So we all met up at the usual place had a cuppa then on to the storage unit where I had to hook up the trailer to pull it out far enough to get the car out of the back so we could use the engine hoist.

As you can see it was a nice day for it but where we now store the trailer isn't exactly on the best base for using a steel rollered engine hoist that is designed for workshop floors and there is not a lot of room to do all this in. but the team got to it we emptied the trailer of all the bits and bobs first in order to free up enough room to release the dragster, boy do we carry some junk around with us but that's the problem when you don't have a workshop or a garage of your own.

With everything out of the way and the trailer jacked up we got the car out, the heads and the injection system had already been removed.

So it was a case of remove the body work and undo the engine to gearbox nuts and bolts and remove the front engine plate bolts.

Then pull the motor out of the dragster and replace the body panels so they don't receive anymore damage.

After this the motor-less dragster was pushed back in the trailer and the trailer put back in it's rightful place and locked and chocked, The engine was very carefully placed in the back of Steve's car where it will be taken away to be looked at hopefully the bottom end has received no damage, then we will appraise the damage and see what you can do about it...(Afford) if anything! at best that's us for the rest of this season at worse that's us for good, we have only managed to get the car up the track five times in total this season so this is not going to be a vintage year for us but there's always next year...fingers crossed.

103. Dragstalgia 2017, not a vintage year!!!!!

The car is nearly back together, Mike Oates ordered some fittings earlier in the week and they turned up in time, the team could hardly contain their excitement, we had only made one meeting earlier in the year and this was going to be the big one we knew that if everything worked as it should have we could really run some numbers, remember we hadn't done any testing in fact the engine hadn't been run since May where we torched the heads again.

So Dave and I made our way over to pick the trailer up Thursday evening, we left a day earlier as this meeting had now got so big if we didn't get there early enough pit space became a problem..later that evening Steve and Justin turned up and set up their tent ready for th three day event

As you can see we still need to get all the trailer wheels blasted and coated, one just looks silly and I still haven't found an American style anti sway bar that will keep the truck and trailer level on top of this the new trailer plugs I fitted didn't cure the lack of trailer brakes so I had to take it easy. We set up camp, had a couple of drinks and went for a wander round to see who was there already...mainly a large contingent of Scandinavians who had made the trip over just for this  one meeting.

Up early Friday morning, things still needed to be done to the car, first all the batteries needed charging, Steve needed to set the backlash on the car fit the headers and the new diaper, then Mike Oates turned up with more fuel and  the fittings we needed to finish off installing the High Speed Lean off Valve.

When all this was finished the car was fired up and everything looked OK Steve backed off the timing a bit to take out some power as this was our first run on the rebuilt engine. So after putting a heat cycle through the motor and checking out everything we towed down to the start line Friday afternoon.

We ran a solo the motor fired up OK I made my way round to the start line where Dave got me to spin up the slicks in the water trough the burn out was good I left the line pretty sharpish, well it was sharpish for me in fact it was the best reaction time I had ever made. The 60ft time was crap we had taken a lot of power out of the motor but we also know that we have a slow trans brake solenoid, something else to look at soon, the run felt pretty good.......

I hadn't driven the car for a wee while so one peddle and through and not giving it too much just to re-acclimatise myself to the cockpit, I pulled the chute, I didn't need to but I thought it best to make sure it still worked like it is supposed to and as I shut the motor down I heard a"pop!" I got off at the first exit and was picked up by the team where I was told I had just run a 9.5 at 144mph, that will do for a shake down now to put the power back in, but alas after trying to fire the car back up in the pits we immediately knew something was wrong, the heads were taken off along with the injection system and then the fuel pump and the front timing cover.

We found the timing  chain pulley had come off the cam shaft the resulting damage meant we were out of the meeting and possible the rest of the year. I could have cried, in fact I did, it was just about all the money that we had put tin to the car it was all the time effort and hard work to get her to Dragstalgia. The car had worked fin the fuelling had been nigh on spot on Thanks Mike, we were looking forward to running numbers as quick if not quicker than Mark Cousell was running, the car was set up to run at least 8.4's.

The Culprit

We have a few of these bent push rods

We have a few of these smashed lifters too

Spud drive is worn

We also managed to bend the shaft on the fuel pump and we know we have some bent valves wont know how many till we take the head apart, I found this on Facebook recently and I think it sums up everything.

So on Saturday Steve took the heads back with him Dave, Lorni and I packed all the other bits away, we stayed for the whole meeting and watched some incredible racing well done to all the Wild Bunchers for putting on an incredible show and all those PB's..brilliant, We had a party in the pits with live music which was great, But after watching the finals in Sunday we had to put the rest of the bits and pieces away and hitch up the trailer and go home.

I would like to thank everyone that helped us and came round to give the team some advice we are going to take a breather now before we do anything else and take stock of what we have and what we need then make a decision on what and when we are going to do if anything.

Until we are back on the track to all Wild Bunchers run fast run safe and hopefully we will see you all in the not too distant future.